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Monday, 30 January 2017

I want to take inspiration for the style of my 2 videos from some infographics that I watched during my research. The Power of Food Infographic and Infographic about Dare are 2 perfect examples of how I envision my work.

They are simplified cartoon-like drawings that rely on colour. I don't really draw much like this so I think this would be the perfect opportunity to branch out with my art skills. These 2 videos have also shown me that more than one style of font is used throughout, confirming my earlier thoughts of combining a sleek, elegant font with a cursive or script-like font would be a great way to go.

In regards to colour scheme, I’m thinking about having one video pastel colours and the others in bolder, brighter tones. I will try to look for complimentary colours but I think this would be a better way to distinguish between the 2 videos.

I have shown these 2 videos before but they feature in the screenshots above.

As I’ve chosen to base my Adaption A project around a mini web series, choosing the right colour scheme is very important. I need to find a collection of colours that not only compliment each other but can either apply to all the infographics as a whole or a collection of colours that could be spilt down to help define the videos.

I did some basic research using Google and Pinterest and I soon noticed a running trend. The pastel colour schemes were more pleasing to the eye and was also a reoccurring theme within many of the infographics that I watched for research at the start. The muted tonal range was also equally appealing.

Before I go any further with the decision for a colour palette, I feel that I need to have outlined both of the script and have some of the art in the process of being made. I think this will make it easier to chose a complimentary set of colours for the 2 videos.

For my Adaption B project, I started off with 4 separate ideas that all originate from books. Up until this point, their research and idea development has been separate but I felt it was time to compress the core ideas into one post and start choosing my final idea.

Skullduggery Pleasant

The idea surrounding my plans to adapt Skullduggery Pleasant is to combine the essence of the story with neo-noir. I hope to take direct excerpts from the series as a base to create a model of Skullduggery and have him pose in a classic film-noir setting before he creates a flame in his hands and the scene pops with colour. This is possibly the strongest idea that I have and I would love to create more than one model, even if it is Skullduggery as the Skeleton Detective and Skullduggery in his disguise. However, I would rather model another character to pose along side him. Namely Stephanie Edgley, the female protagonist or her kiss-ass fighting alter-ego, Valkyrie Cain.

The Last Dragon Chronicles

The last Dragon Chronicles is based around magical clay dragons. I want to take direct excerpts from the books about 3 of the dragons and model them around a superhero concept. This could go 1 of 2 ways. A more realistic view based around the live action superhero films such as X-Men or the Fantastic Four or to go for the comic book look with the bold outlines and bright colours. Of course, they are initially clay dragons and I’m keen to stick with this but to what degree of realism is still debatable. I have some inspiration in the form of my 2 clay dragons at home but I don't want to be influenced too much, as this could affect their overall look.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

The main concept for The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness is to create a 3D walk through of the map, taking influence from the Game of Thrones intro sequence. This revolves around the map illustration from within the cover of book 1. This is one of the more vague ideas out of the 4 but it does have potential. For this idea to work, it would take a lot of effort as the map is quite extensive. A lot of it is forest based before reaching different clan settlements and several different terrains including mountain ranges and the sea. These are modelling issues which would need research before committing to this idea, as the set would be large with many assets to it.

Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl has the potential to be great but comes with several issues. It is the only idea that has a prior adaption into a graphic novel. Although my idea to adapt it may be seen as another vague idea, I believe that the art style from the graphic illustrations and graphic artists Dan Mumford and Olly Moss create, I could really take the models to a new level visually. Making one fully rigged character in this time limit is ordinarily enough of a challenge but for this idea to reach its full potential, I feel that I would have to model the other 2 characters. This obviously has its drawbacks as I would be modelling not only a human boy but a centaur and a fairy. This could take a lot of time as they would need special attention and potentially look wrong with their level of realism compared to Artemis or even with aesthetic features.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness and Artemis Fowl are definitely the weakest ideas. They would take a lot of time and effort and ultimately at this time, I do not think that they would be possible to complete within the time frame. I think that Skullduggery Pleasant is definitely the strongest idea and has a lot of potential. It has the most interesting approach by including neo-noir and with no prior adaptions, it would allow me to put my own twist on the series. The Last Dragon Chronicles is another strong idea but the superhero idea does need refining.

At this point, I feel that I should narrow my ideas down to Skullduggery and the dragons as they are definitely the strongest ideas. I feel that Skullduggery is the best idea but I don't want to jump straight into neo-noir with out taking this idea further in research and designs.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer is a series of books that features criminal master mind Artemis Fowl the 2nd. Although he's only a teenage genius, Artemis captures Captain Holly Short, of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Recon) and he holds her ransom to exploit the magical fairy people to restore his family's fortune. Foaly is a centaur, a technical genius and a computer geek. He works for LEP and is in charge of “preventing humankind from discovering the fairy civilisation”.

The book itself is highly detailed and has many layers to it but it breaks down into the central premise of a boy genius in a magical world. Artemis Fowl is the only one of my ideas that has been adapted previously. The series ran not only as a book series but as a graphic novel as well. I personally have never seen these but I have seen a few pieces of artwork from it but they differ hugely from what I imagined the characters would be.

Initially, I wanted to model the three main characters from the descriptions I could extract from the book. When I learnt that there was a graphic novel, I felt that I should give this graphic look a spin for my work. When I was reading the books, I always felt that there was a cartoon-esque feel about the novel when I learnt about the magical side to the story. I saw Artemis and his bodyguard Butler as humans but imagined Holly and Foaly as cartoon like people as I’d never seen a film with a ‘realistic’ fairy or centaur at this point.

I want to model Artemis Fowl but I feel that he would not be best portrayed if I didn't have at least one of the other main characters there; namely Holly or Foaly. When trying to take this graphic look into account for my idea, it reminded me of two artists who's work I have adored for several years; Dan Mumford and Olly Moss.

Dan Mumford is a British freelance illustrator. Over the years he has created designs for album covers, branding and screen prints, to new interpretations of classic film posters and albums. His work is unique and revolves around a cartoony feel with a classic tattoo feel. He also uses bright bold colours to accentuate the contrast between the colour and thick black lines. His style would be great to use texturally on characters and for background sets/imagery.

Olly Moss is another British freelance illustrator and graphic artist. He rose to fame reimagining movie posters. His work is regularly featured in Empire the film magazine. His work has a different feel to Dan’s but has equal beauty. Olly’s work is clean and clinical but also relies on colour and contrast. Olly’s work is more relaxed and has a minimalist feel. This approach could also work as well if I keep the lines clean with block colours.

Ultimately, this idea is lacking but does have potential. It's the only idea with some form of pre-existing adaption and if I did choose this, then I would have to be very conscious of this pre-existing work. Although I have never seen this, I would have to be careful not to be influenced by it while making sure that I am not creating imagery that could be seen as replicating this work.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver is a series of six historical fantasy books that follow Torak, a 12 year old boy and his wolf cub companion. They must battle to save their world as their journey takes them through “deep forests, across giant glaciers and into dangers they never imagined.”

I have 2 separate ideas revolving around this project. The first was to create models of the 2 main characters from the series; Torak and Renn. The other main character in this book is a wolf. Torak and Wolf are inseparable and I’m not sure if it would be possible to model and rig Torak, a young boy and a wolf in the time frame given.

The map from the inside covers of the 1st book Wolf Brother.

My 2nd idea for adapting this series is revealed within the front covers of the book. There is a detailed drawing of a map to help the readers visualise Torak’s journey. I was thinking about taking some inspiration from the Game of Thrones start sequence by making a 3D model of the map from the book. It could start high above the set to replicate the book before diving into the map at head height. There are several ways that this idea can move on from there. It could mimic the way the the structures raise in Game of Thrones, it could be a walk through of the map tracing Torak’s trial in the books or it could even revolve around a series of camera shots that show the true extent of the set from head height.

The Last Dragon Chronicles is a series of books with a target audience for young teenagers. The book revolves around David Rain, a lodger in the Pennykettle residence. He soon finds out the clay dragons, scattered around the house are actually real and all possess special powers. I wanted to model 3 of the main dragons from the series: Gadzooks, Gretel and Grace.

Clay Dragon Information

Gadzooks

An inspirational writing dragon with a powerful ability to make events happen simply by writing down words on the notepad he carries. Guides David throughout the series and is influential in all the major developments of the story.

Gretel

A potions dragon who casts spells in the scents of flowers. Initially made for Gwilanna, she later defects to Zanna.

Grace

A listening dragon. She has the ability to pick up and beam signals from and to humans such as Liz or David, or any of the other Pennykettle dragons.

At home I have 2 clay dragons of my own. ‘Smokey’ on the left is an incense burner. You put an incense cone inside and smoke trails from his nostrils. ‘Lumos’ on the right is an ornate lamp. I wanted to draw inspiration from these and input them into my own.

Little Dragon Designs, is a small company on Facebook. The lady sculpts her own dragons. They are truly amazing and a great reference point but they may ultimately be too realistic. Although these are sculpted by hand just like in the books, they may have too much detail which could be hard to depict in Maya.

For this idea, I ultimately want to model at least 1 of these clay dragons and merge it with a comic book style. Due to their ‘hidden’ powers, I was thinking about making them into a superhero gang like the X-Men or the Fantastic Four. This may be down to the posing or the colouring, maybe even black outlines using the toon shader to accentuate the comic style or if more than one if modelled, it could be a ‘gang’ pose that is used.

Upon reviewing all of my options for Adaption A, it has become increasingly hard to chose between the 2 ideas. I like the idea of using both ideas and creating 2 short videos in the style of a mini web series titled “What They Don't Tell You”. The idea behind this, is that they are weekly infographics released on a number of topics. This way, I can use the information from both the teacher and parents ideas and create 2 short infographics.

This means the art style has to flow between the two pieces. The colour scheme will also have to either be the same in both pieces or compliment each other. As the deadline is not far away, getting a voice over will be hard to do, I may have to rely on the typography and timing of the piece. The font would have to be clean and not a fancy script. The font I choose would probably have to be a running theme throughout both videos to add a sense of connection.

I would like to make both pieces short and snappy. When I was looking at infographics, I found that watching any under 1:30 minutes, I was left wanting more, any over 2-3 minutes could drag. This means that I will have to limit what facts / statistics / information I use for each piece. I will have to sort the scripts out for both videos asap to ensure that I have enough time to plan both videos out, create all the art necessary, conduct some tests in after effects and still have time to put them together. The turn around for this to happen is going to be tight but I feel that this will be a good way to help me with my time management. For this to work I need to set myself realistic daily deadlines and post regularly to the blog to show my progress and get any relevant feedback as I go along rather than just at the end.

To summarise, I will be making 2 videos as my final piece as if they were part of a mini web series called “What They Don’t Tell You”. This will consist of “Things Your Parents Doesn't Tell You” and “Things your Teacher Doesn't Tell You”.

I’ve been thinking of ways to portray the Skullduggery Pleasant adaption in a new light. Alan suggested Film Noir, as Skullduggery in its simplest form is a skeleton detective series.

Film noir is . . .

1. A French term meaning "black film," or film of the night, inspired by the Series Noir, a line of cheap paperbacks that translated hard-boiled American crime authors and found a popular audience in France.

2. A movie which at no time misleads you into thinking there is going to be a happy ending.

3. Locations that reek of the night, of shadows, of alleys, of the back doors of fancy places, of apartment buildings with a high turnover rate, of taxi drivers and bartenders who have seen it all.

4. Cigarettes. Everybody in film noir is always smoking, as if to say, "On top of everything else, I've been assigned to get through three packs today." The best smoking movie of all time is "Out of the Past," in which Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas smoke furiously at each other. At one point, Mitchum enters a room, Douglas extends a pack and says, "Cigarette?" and Mitchum, holding up his hand, says, "Smoking."

5. Women who would just as soon kill you as love you, and vice versa.

6. For women: low necklines, floppy hats, mascara, lipstick, dressing rooms, boudoirs, calling the doorman by his first name, high heels, red dresses, elbow length gloves, mixing drinks, having gangsters as boyfriends, having soft spots for alcoholic private eyes, wanting a lot of someone else's women, sprawling dead on the floor with every limb meticulously arranged and every hair in place.

7. For men: fedoras, suits and ties, shabby residential hotels with a neon sign blinking through the window, buying yourself a drink out of the office bottle, cars with running boards, all-night diners, protecting kids who shouldn't be playing with the big guys, being on first-name terms with homicide cops, knowing a lot of people whose descriptions end in "ies," such as bookies, newsies, junkies, alkys, jockeys and cabbies.

8. Movies either shot in black and white, or feeling like they were.

9. Relationships in which love is only the final flop card in the poker game of death.

10. The most American film genre, because no society could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear and betrayal, unless it were essentially naive and optimistic.

After looking into this, I felt it was too stereotypical and wanted the models to ‘pop’ with some colour. I’ve been re-reading parts of the 1st book from the series and have found some quotes…

It was at Gordon's funeral, however, that Stephanie Edgley first caught sight of the gentleman in the tan overcoat. He was standing under the shade of a large tree, away from the crowd, the coat buttoned up all the way despite the warmth of the afternoon. A scarf was wrapped around the lower half of his face and even from her position on the far side of the grave, Stephanie could make out the wild and frizzy hair that escaped from the wide brimmed hat he wore low over his gigantic sunglasses. (page 12)

“Do you know who I am?”

“Haven't the foggiest,” Skulduggery said.

The man spat blood and grinned defiantly. “Well I know about you, detective, and you're going to have to do a lot more than that to stop me.”

Skulduggery shrugged and Stephanie watched in amazement as a ball of fire flared up in his hand and he hurled it and the man was suddenly covered in flame. (page 47)

Skulduggery snapped his gloved fingers and sparks flew, and he curled his hand and the sparks grew to flame, and he held that ball of flame in his palm as they walked.

… thrust his hand out, sending the ball of fire shooting through the air. It burned out as it arced in the night sky and faded into nothing (page 68)

Skullduggery is not only a walking, talking sassy detective, he is also an ‘adept’ meaning he controls magic. I was thinking about modelling Skullduggery, posing him in a classic look from the film noir era, then have him move, click his fingers and produce fire in his hands.

To do this, I found that there is a modern day version of film noir known as Neo-Noir. This literally translates to ‘the new black’. Neo-noir films use “elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in film noir of the 1940s and 1950s.” (wikipedia)

As the term is so loose, it can apply to many films. During my research, I stumbled across a great film which not only portrays neo-noir in a way that I think would work well for my idea but is a great visual concept: Frank Miller’s Sin City.

Combing Neo-Noir with my idea that now means that Skullduggery would be posed in black and white before moving, clicking his fingers and the orange flame illuminating any other colour within the lights fall-off zone.

Saturday, 28 January 2017

From the interviews I have conducted, I tried to categorise each the of answers given. From this I thought that I would be able to see some clear patterns and from this, create some statistics to use in the infographic.

These are the statistics that I put together for all 4 choices. From this, I was able to see that the Things Your Body Doesn't Tell You and Things Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You, produced results that were too broad and felt like they did not explore the subjects enough. To make either of these two ideas work, I would have to find a bigger target audience I could interview and with such a sort time to work on this project, that just wouldn't work.

I then took the two strongest responses - Things Your Teacher Doesn't Tell You and Things Your Parents Doesn't Tell you - and tried to find some common ground within them. I broke the answers down into 6 categories: your life, learning / life lessons, their life, lies, joke responses and truth. Both of them appear to be equal to a degree. I will have to write a vague script for both options but at this point, I feel that I should go with Things Your Parents Doesn't Tell You. This will allow me to go for a comedic/satirical approach.

As I wasn't sure on which idea to pursue, I've spent the week asking as many people as I can for thoughts on each topic. I was nicely surprised to see running trends within each topic. Unfortunately, Things Your Body Doesn't Tell You seemed confusing to some and the answers I received back were weak, off topic or joke responses. Things Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You wasn't received well either and some of the answers I was given felt forced or confused. At the moment, the two strongest topics are parents and teachers. Next I want to compress this information into generalised statistics from their responses if I can and take things from there.

Saturday, 21 January 2017

After my tutorial with Alan, I have come away with some more insightful feedback for both Adaption A and B. I have tried to sum up the feedback given for both projects with a few key points:

Adaption A

I have 1 week to finalise my ideas and chose a final route to follow.

My piece can be short. I could even do 2 short pieces as if they were to be part of a mini online web series.

I do not need to worry about the style of my piece just yet. Style will fall into place once my final idea comes into fruition.

The ideas I have been working on do not necessarily have ‘real’ statistics. I could do mini interviews with friends and family to ask what they think about each and form my own statistics from their answers and base my work around this instead.

Adaption B

Steer clear of already adapted work. Artemis Fowl is not only a book but it is also a graphic novel and is in the process of being adapted for film. I don't want to get bogged down with pre-existing artwork as it could potentially influence my work.

I need to look for the 10% niche. When my ideas are broken down into their main structure, the topics they reflect can be seen as generic. Skullduggery Pleasant is skeletons,detectives and magic. The Last Dragon Chronicles is pottery dragons. The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness is a boy and his wolf. Artemis Fowl is a boy genius and his fight with fairies and magical folk. If I do want to pursue any of these, I need to completely understand the idea behind what I am adapting and find a niche angle to adapt from. From film noir detectives to anthropomorphised clay dragons depicted as a gang, I need to find some way to give my work a spark.

As I am passionate about all the novels, I need to dive down the rabbit hole and exploit as many angles and as much information as I can until one idea proves its worth. I feel that unless I do this I could end up choosing an idea and within a few weeks feel like it has fallen flat because there wasn't much depth to my starting idea.

My plan for the next week is as follows:

For Adaption A, I need to ask others their thoughts and write down their opinions on my topics. From this maybe I could compare their answers and see if there is a running trend within each topic. Each idea will need to be bulked up so I can chose a topic that is not only relatable but translates well on screen. It might be that I chose a web series, or I may make a stand alone infographic but I definitely need the information and ideas to back it. From this point on, I can then begin to design my infographic.

For Adaption B, I need to push myself to come up with as many ideas as possible surrounding each core idea. I need to explore as many angles as possible, find text excerpts that are interesting and turn my passion for each series into a fruitful idea, riddled with information. By Friday, I would like to hope that I have either chosen my final idea or that I am very close to choosing as then I can dedicate my time and effort into it.

Wednesday, 18 January 2017

During my research into infographics, I found that the font and typeface can make or break an infographic, especially where the is a lot of text involved. Ironically, I had to find some infographics on typography to find out some simple information.

A lot of fonts work best when paired together. There is a lot of science behind how a font works. Serif, Sans serif and Script are the main classifications. Within these there are sub-fonts and styles derived from the main font. Generally, big bold fonts work best when paired with a slim font. It shows variance of importance to the reader. Italic fonts and script fonts work best when paired with a capitalised thin font.

To find my own pair of fonts that will work best for my project may take some experimenting. In the meantime I have tested a few fonts below. Of course the final fonts will also depend on the tone of my piece as businesslike fonts will work better with a serious tone.

For Adaption B, I have been looking into some books that I think would be fun to create models from. I have written a short overview of the books and ideas which stem from them. I also thought of 2 poems that could create some interesting ideas but at the moment I'm not too sure what direction to take with them.

Books

Skullduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy

A series of fantasy books following the adventures of the skeleton detective, Skullduggery Pleasant, and a teenage girl, Stephanie Edgley. In a world where magic exists and elements can be manipulated, It is possible to create a flame on the tip of your finger or ‘push’ the air and give you a super human boost during a jump. You can dry your self by manipulating the water off of your clothes or even create an air bubble around you to keep you dry in the rain by controlling the air.

Character models

Skullduggery

Valkyrie

Tanith

Ghastly

Locations

Gordon Edgley’s House

Irish Sanctuary

Skullduggery Pleasant’s House

Car

The Bentley

The Last Dragon Chronicles - Chris d’Lacey

A series of books where magic exists. Lodger David Rain finds out the the clay dragons in the house are all alive and even posses magic powers. From Gadzooks the ‘inspiration writing dragon’ who has his own notepad, to Gretel the potions dragons who casts ‘spells in the scents of flowers’ and Grace, the listening dragon with abnormally large ears.

Character models of the clay dragons

Gadzooks

Gretel

Grace

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness - Michelle Paver

A series of six historical fantasy books that follow Torak, a 12 year old boy and his wolf cub companion. They must battle to save their world as their journey takes them through “deep forests, across giant glaciers and into dangers they never imagined.”

Character models

Torak

Renn

3D model of map from book

Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

A series of books that features criminal master mind Artemis Fowl the 2nd. Although he's only a teenage genius, Artemis captures Captain Holly Short, of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Recon) and he holds her ransom to exploit the magical fairy people to restore his family's fortune. Foaly is a centaur, a technical genius and a computer geek. He works for LEP and is in charge of “preventing humankind from discovering the fairy civilisation".

As i'm still unsure about what idea to go with, I have taken the top 4 from my list and have tried to expand them. So far I think the parent and teacher ideas are strong contenders for a comedic route and the medical ideas (doctors and body) are better suited for a more factual route.

Parents

Missing toys are really in the bin

9 times out of 10, your toy was just too grubby to keep. The toys didn't go on holiday, really they just went in the bin

Your drawings were terrible when you were little

Just a small white lie but it you did get better with age

Carrots don’t make you see in the dark

Vitamin A promotes good eye health, and carrots contain beta-carotene, which the body converts to Vitamin A. Just a little white lie to help you out.

They had a life before you

Its hard to believe that they had a life before you but they did. Go ask your grandparents.

Doctors

Needles DO hurt

If you move it will hurt. If you tense it will hurt. If you flinch it will hurt. You get where I’m going with this.

No 2 people are a like - even with illnesses

A cold actually mutates between each person so you can often get the same strain of cold back off the person you gave it to!

They’ve seen it all before

You’re often not the 1st person to come in with a bump on your head or a scraped knuckle but they’ll treat you the same as the person before and the person after

Vaccines are important

Without vaccinations, we’d still be dealing with a lot more nasty diseases.

Your BMI is not an accurate measure of your health.

In this instance, one size does not fit all.

You can become allergic to anything at anytime!

Its a strange but true fact although it is often quite rare. Just because you’ve eaten an apple every day of your life doesn't mean that tomorrow you could suddenly become allergic to them!

School / Teachers

Taxes are real - and they're important too

A lot of young adults today don't understand taxes. Where was a basic tax class in school?!

Rent is A LOT of money

You might have done a ‘fun’ activity in class adding up how much money you need for furniture but they neglect to tell you that rent is a lot of money too.

Finding a job is hard

Just because you have good grades doesn't necessarily mean you’ll get a job.

Coursework doesn't get easier

It will always get harder as you continue to learn new things

The Pythagoras theorem isn't as important as you thought

Nor is algebra

Unbalanced fractions

Pi. (unless spelt P. I. E.)

Body

On average your body needs 7-9 hours of sleep per night.

Without sleep, your body suffers.

You need fluids. Dehydration is a real threat. Try to keep your body topped up with drinks

Lack of fluids can cause constipation, headaches, fatigue, and even kidney disease

By eating fruits and vegetables, your body might be making its own aspirin

People who intake benzoic acid, a natural substance in fruits and vegetables, make their own salicylic acid, the key component that gives aspirin its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties.

You need to look after you feet

Each step puts up to 1.5 times your body weight on your feet, which are shock absorbers that bear 60 tons of pressure every mile you travel.

The best age for learning was from birth till you were 12

This is when our brain are primed to learn everything to ensure our survival. Of course you can still learn things after this age but it can be harder.

Following on from my video infographic research, I decided to look into standard infographics as well. I thought these might give me some ideas for layout, text and style. These are the 9 that really caught my eye.

The layout for these three caught my eye initially. The first one is in black and white but there is a clear style to it. Each drawing may be simple with a thick black outline but it is really effective. The second follows a colour theme throughout and the way it has been presented was nice and clear. Although there isn't much text, it works well for the piece. The 3rd is heavily reliant on different fonts and colours.

These 3 images are heavily reliant on the text. If these were to be made into video infographics, the images they have would work well and most of the text could be heard as a voice over with only vital information on screen. The coffee facts infographic is the one that I think would work best as a video infographic as it has an even amount of text and imagery and there is a constant theme throughout.

These final three are infographics about the environment. The colour scheme reflects the topic and are shown in a clear format. These made me realise that the colours for an infographic didn't necessarily have to be bright, but it also has to fit within the initial theme.

All of them are reliant on the text and imagery as well as a clear theme. I think that I will have to find some facts and statistics for my project before looking into the fonts or choosing a colour scheme as this could ultimately impact on the look of the final piece.

Tuesday, 17 January 2017

As I'm not really sure in which direction to take my Adaption A project, I thought that I should do some research on video infographics for my top 3 ideas.

When researching about health, doctors and nurses to help "Things your doctor doesn't tell you", it brought up some interesting videos during my searches. A lot of different stances were taken. From the way they were delivering the facts and the statistics used, to the colour schemes and if voice overs were used or not. From what I found, I could see no clear pattern in style.

After looking into these health related videos, I found that one of my originally discarded ideas - "Things your body doesn't tell you" could just be health related facts such as "on average your body needs x amount of sleep", "on average your heart pumps x amount of times per day", to more serious stances such as "do you realise what happens to your body when you have an unbalanced diet?" or "cuts and burns can be serious". This idea definitely needs more thought but could also be interchanged with "Things your doctor doesn't tell you".

Next, I looked into infographics about parents. These were much harder to find but the language used in them was friendly for people of all ages, not just the parents. Some had a comic like quality to them which tried to make them appealing for all the family (food infographic) whereas others took on a more serious tone. The colour schemes were spilt between bright and colourful tones and some were muted colours. These reflected on the tonality of the piece.

I also found some other interesting infographics which I will also post below. As a general rule, they all appear to be made with bright and colourful tones, rely on fonts and typefaces and they all have a cartoon-esque appeal. Some were more reliant on computer based transitions to move between points were as some others seemed to flow continuously throughout.

I think the next step is to find 2 different approaches for each of my top ideas (a comic version and a more serious one) and I will then try to back each one up with some points and statistics. I'll see which one has the most potential before I draft up a rough script. I also plan to look into typefaces and font as I believe this to be a main factor in a successful and engaging infographic. All of my images will be drawn up using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and then, depending on my chosen style, I will either create the final piece in Adobe After Effects or Premiere Pro (possibly even a mix of the 2 programs)Health/Doctor/Nurse Infographics

Overall, I think that I could have done more work but due to poor time management and issues with Maya, I have a lot less than I should have. Using Maya on a mac last year didn't cause me many issues but now as I try to import shelves and add in extra bits to Maya, I'm struggling. This is mainly due to the differences in main program location and the way a mac works vs a windows machine. Even using a hard drive has proved problematic for me after updating, as key patches were originally missing. For about 2 weeks I was unable to access any of my work until I managed to download a patch to fix the issue. I need to search the internet and find fixes for these issues fast, as it is delaying my work considerably.

Although, I have enjoyed doing the Maya tutorials, I have often doubted the work created - especially for the head tutorials as I feel that I should be creating it a lot quicker than I am. It's only now that I see how long this process really is. Unfortunately, the head and body tutorials aren't complete but I am going to keep working on them and try to get them finished at the latest for Thursday's Maya class as I do not want to be behind.

I liked the Maya classes but found the 3 pose animation harder to do than I first thought. This may be due to the activity that I chose for Max to do (archery) but I now have a greater understanding of animating. This is definitely a weaker skill for me and it will need some more practise until I feel happier about the process. I loved doing the lip syncing and found it really enjoyable. I thought that I would struggle with it but its only recently that I've realised that I rely on lip reading in life and when watching films. If I don't hear what someone has said, I rely on their mouth movements to fill in the blanks and I would definitely say that this has helped me with this task.

I did enjoy the film reviews and really liked the freedom of choosing my own films. It took me a while to understand some of the concepts that I had to write about. For example, I initially struggled with the opposing characters review as although I understood the general idea, I found it hard to to relate it to any films. It took me several attempts to truly understand it and write the review. I also found it hard to determine how many acts a film had. I could work it out with plays or theatrical pieces but not really for any films. Any film that I watched I tried to break down into acts but it also took me several weeks to determine the exact point that an act began and when it ended. Now that I understand these concepts, I can see these traits in most films that I watch.